


Don’t Fight the Dragon, If You’re Not Ready to Kill It

by Inkribbon796



Series: Masks and Maladies [55]
Category: Markiplier fandom - Fandom
Genre: Cannibalism, Child In Danger, Cigarettes, Death Threats, Kidnapping, M/M, Original Character Death(s), a nicotine addiction to be exact, fluff at the end, light mention of addiction, mild descriptions of gore, no harm actually happens to said child, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23042782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkribbon796/pseuds/Inkribbon796
Summary: Life’s hard, it’s even harder when you’re dumb as bricks. The Gray Street Gang is a relatively new name in Egoton, but they’re experienced. They’re eager to strike back against Dark. So their leader has an idea so crazy it just might work, they’re going to hit Dark at the knees, by taking Bim.
Relationships: darkstache
Series: Masks and Maladies [55]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538131
Kudos: 42





	Don’t Fight the Dragon, If You’re Not Ready to Kill It

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request from my tumblr (which I keep forgetting to plug, @inkribbon796) from chatmeow9 who asked:  
> An idea for you Superhero AU: an overzealous hero (or a noob villain) who is new to town thinks that all the stories about how powerful and dangerous Dark is are bullshit. The guy has a very obvious weak spot (a young Bim whom they kidnap) and taunts Dark to come after them  
> Well, I worked it to be a rival villain who is used to humans but inept when it comes to not knowing when not to hit a dragon with a stick.

~::~ Fifteen Years Ago ~::~

It wasn’t every day that someone decided to steal from Dark. Typically he had people who owed him debts and thought they could run without paying him back. Or rival gangs that metaphorically put on shoes and pants a bit too big for them to handle and tried to muscle in on territory that was his.

But rarely did someone try and brazenly steal something that was his, something that belonged to Dark and think they could bribe him with it.

Today, unfortunately, was one of those days.

Wilford had become a bit too eager to have Bim always near him. He was in a mood, but unlike one of his murder binges, he wanted to show Bim off in his station. Dark had screened it, and he’d been slowly letting rumors about a new enforcer spread through his network, making sure no one had a clear story. For once Dark was glad of Wil’s constant serial adultery. All Dark had to do was appear uncaring of the kid.

Something easier said than done because Bim had little to no fear of him. It was making other types of whispers being spread, ones that Dark wasn’t sure if the heroes were catching yet: an Underworld Prince. Fortunately Remus seemed to think people were talking about him, and that was an assumption that Dark did nothing to correct since it confused accounts even more.

But while Dark was speaking to the Producer, able to watch Wil and whisper quietly to her about the show while Wil was working, Dark felt something go wrong. It took him a second to realize why something was wrong, but then he realized that Bim was suddenly too quiet.

Which he’d quickly learned as a parent that sudden silence was never a good thing, especially with Bim so small and mischievous.

Dark had put a very small portal at the front of his ear that connected to Wil’s dressing room. A room Wil swore he locked after he left, keeping Bim safely out of sight.

But now Dark couldn’t even hear him snoring. Which by itself was a cause for concern, but Anti had taken the kid from the Manor before, so Dark at first assumed it was Anti again.

Several months ago, after Anti had taken Bim for an impromptu joyride and brought him back in the middle of a sugar high, Dark had procured a little metal star lapel pin and placed it on the inside of Bim’s suit coat, imbuing it with his aura. That way it would save him the headache of tracking Anti or Wil down again if they took off with him.

Only this time he felt it moving away from him, and all the electronics seemed unmanaged.

“Excuse me,” Dark said and looked over at Wil to find him in the middle of an interview, and if his current demeanor was any indication, going to be of no help to him for the next half hour.

As he was checking Wil’s backstage dressing room, he found a note stabbed inside of the door of the dressing room, left slightly ajar.

_Kid didn’t have a playmate so we took him for a couple hours._

_Come to the 8th St. Museum, alone, and you can pick him up._

There was a little schematic of what Dark assumed to be a meeting place. Dark just about took the door off its hinges, kicking it open.

Writing a quick note to Wil on the back that read, _“Going to pick Bim up, if you’re done before I am, meet us there, we’ll be having words afterward”_. He left the note with Kathryn and teleported into Google’s workshop.

The android’s natural reaction was to almost electrocute him but Dark blocked it with his aura.

“You are coming with me,” Dark ordered. “Drop whatever inane project you have, right now.”

“Inane!” Google growled, clearly insulted, he looked like he was working over android body parts. What it was yet, Dark couldn’t tell. Quite frankly the Entity couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. He’d save that for after he tortured a couple gangsters.

“Do so willingly or I’ll order you to,” Dark threatened. It was a rather empty threat, but that wasn’t what was important.

Google’s eyes flashed blue, but he dropped his tools and marched over to the Entity.

“This had better be actually important, and not Warfstache’s bullshit,” Google threatened Dark in return.

“At the end of this I plan on torturing a couple people,” Dark promised. “I am more than willing to share my quarry if they die slowly.”

Google seemed to take interest in it. Finally he admitted, “That will suffice.”

“Good, bring surveillance equipment, I’ll need you to be stealthy,” Dark warned. “Some adult children thought it would be wise to steal something of mine when I had back turned and I don’t want it damaged when I reclaim it.”

“Then we can initiate the secondary objective?” Google asked, trying to keep from being impatient.

“Anything other than my asset we find in their hideout, you can kill with indiscretion,”

“Excellent,” Google smiled and grabbed a small box the size of a briefcase. “What does this asset look like so I will not kill it on contact?”

“It’s Wil’s son,” Dark admitted, watching Google’s reaction when he said it.

Google’s mouth twitched a little, “You made it seem like an object.”

“Everything that involves Wil also belongs to me,” Dark ordered. “Now, are you willing to play along?”

“If it means fulfilling the secondary objective, in a heartbeat,” Google told him.

Dark nodded, summoning a long coat with black fur on the shoulders, he opened up a portal. “You first.”

Google nodded and walked through. Dark following close behind.

Dark was waiting in a warehouse along the port of the river. He was making a show of smoking a cigarette even though it literally couldn’t do anything for him. As per the culture of the time they’d grown up in, both Damien and Celine had been smokers. Both of them preferred cigarettes. However now both of them were in a broken shell, no blood able to pump nicotine through their system, and it was literally impossible to do worse than a set of dead lungs.

For Dark the withdrawals had been hellish and no amount of smoking had cured it. He’d tried just about anything to take away the incessant craving.

The Entity just stood in the middle of the space, two wooden crates that were clearly meant for seats, but Dark refused to take one.

“Never took you much for a smoker,” a voice called out from the darkness. Dark recognized that voice, it belonged to a man named Harold. He headed a rival gang in town. The gangster was smiling at him, as if he found everything about Dark suddenly hilarious.

Which meant that Dark knew exactly who to target when this was all over.

“I’m not,” Dark admitted, checking his watch. “I merely take great pleasure in watching people I hate choke around me.”

Harold looked down at his foot and the encroaching tendril of dark Void energy creeping towards his feet.

“Uh, uh,” he lifted up a walkie talkie, shaking it a little. “You might be able to fool some of the kids, but I’ve been in this business for a while now.”

“An oversight on Deceit’s part, you are from Gainesville, correct?” Dark asked, still lightly puffing away, making sure to take his time.

“Yes, but I’m not here to make pleasantries, I’m here to make a deal,” Harold dismissed. “You’ve been dragging around quite the little brat, your little prince. I’ll have you know, he bit two of my men.”

“Are they infected?” Dark asked dismissively. “I’d hate for him to get sick again. Boy’s as much of a drama queen as his father when he gets sick.”

Harold smiled, “You can’t bluff your way out of this one, Dark. I know you care. Who the hell dresses a five-year-old in a thousand-dollar suit and then sends him off to the park with whom I can only assume is one of your enforcers.”

“I prefer my pets to be well groomed, much like any other prized show dog,” Dark bluffed, the ache in the wound Wil had put in this body decades ago was acting up. He needed Bim back, and he wanted him unharmed.

All he needed was for Google to get into place.

The rival gangster laughed at Dark, “Still with the act? You know he was talking about you? You apparently take him out yourself for ice cream every couple of days. With all the pampering you do for a _“pet”_ he sure is treated more like a person.”

“Have you seen Sierras’s dogs?” Dark scoffed. “She spends more on them than I do on the boy. Which she’s fine to do, all I care about is that she doesn’t waste all her money on hookers and blow, and get herself in trouble with the police.”

“That’d be fine,” Harold didn’t stop smiling. “Except dogs don’t call their owner _“Dad”_ , and talk about how nice they are to them.”

_Shit!_ Dark thought, trying his best to keep the emotion off his face. Panic and desperation would only get Bim killed.

Dark reached the end of the cigarette, stamping it out on the ground and talking out his pack to grab a new one, “And here I thought I’d trained it out of him. Hope you haven’t broken him, Wilford will be very distressed if I bring him back worse for wear.”

“Oh don’t worry,” the gangster boasted, taking out a pair of small child’s glasses, the square frame was black. “Not a hair’s missing, but if you don’t start cooperating then the kid’s gonna start losing fingers.”

Dark had to use the Void to keep his blue echo from cracking and lunging at the man. Damien and Celine had been angry since Bim had been taken, their concerns were now becoming screams.

Placing the new cigarette close to his mouth, but not fully inside, Dark sighed, “You’ve asked for my attention, might as well start boring me with your demands.”

“Easy,” Harold held the glasses up, the end of Dark’s new cigarette spontaneously lit on fire. Dark had to put it in his mouth to keep from smiling. “I want the territory you and that candy cane bastard stole from me three weeks ago. With interest. I want Hickston Ave, all the way down to 18th.”

Dark blew smoke towards him, “And if I refuse?”

Harold seemed confused, “Don’t play coy, asshole, I’ll kill the kid. Or even better yet I’ll turn him over to the cops and sic CPS on your ass and see you flounder your way out of this one.”

“Why does everyone threaten me with them,” Dark rolled his eyes. “He’s in perfect health, gets regular check ups. Money is no object. It’s not like he’s even been spanked a day in his life.”

“Probably could use it,” Harold snapped. “Little troglodyte’s practically feral.”

“I hardly think you’re a moral authority on child rearing,” Dark dismissed, using his aura to wrap around the hand holding Bim’s glasses. Dark had spent two hours trying to Bim to sit still for that check up and he was not going through it again.

“Let me tell you how this is actually going to go, while you were here posturing and ranting at me, I already reclaimed him and now I will spend the next two days killing you and bringing you back to life only to kill you again.” Dark stepped closer as Harold activated his walkie talkie.

“Do it!” Harold shouted.

The only sound that came out was static and Dark began to worm his aura into his fingers. “Maybe you should have put more guards?”

The gangster dropped the walkie talkie and a gun shot out of his sleeve, shooting at Dark. The bullet hitting into his chest and Dark just looked down at it.

“Was that a 9mm?” Dark sounded more insulted by the small hole in his chest. “You couldn’t even spring for a decent hollow point? You’re worth more than that.”

Harold began firing at him again, this time catching the bullets with his aura and once the clip was out, Dark shook the bullets out of his aura, breaking the other gangster’s wrists to make him drop both the gun and to let Dark take the glasses back.

“I was content to let you feed off the fringes of my territory like a bottom feeder, but I will make you pay for stealing from me.”

“You freak of nature, you won’t get away with this,” Harold spat. “Things are changing in our towns, and they’re going to cut a bloated whale like you up.”

“Well that’s a problem for me to solve after I cut you up and flay you like a dead flounder,” Dark used his aura to string the mobster up. “I don’t care who gets the rest of your network. I want you. I’ll mail your thumbs to the police station with a note of what I did to you. Put fear of _me_ back into them. No one gets to steal from me and walk away. I will kill you and your entire gang, and then I will annex all of it to use as bait to put down others. Maybe I’ll immortalize your name on a road or a bridge, so that I can take a walk down it. Or I’ll put in a children’s clothing store, just to spite what you stole from me!”

Dark made sure to shred some of the skin off the man’s body. He didn’t have time to properly destroy him, unfortunately the next two days wouldn’t be enough time. So all Dark could do was curb his anger and then dump him into a dark corner of the Void for him and the twins to concentrate on later.

Stripping the blood off him with his aura, Dark tried to make himself look presentable, sending Bim’s glasses ahead of him.

In the hallways were several bodies in various states of damage, but all five of them sprawled out along the hall. Clearly Google had gotten to them in his search for Bim, and his wanton rampage in the warehouse.

“But what is it?” Bim’s voice was clear as day, there was an open door at the end of the hall.

Dark had to pause to steal his nerve. He felt relief that Bim sounded alright, not a crack of pain in his voice. The echoes of Celine and Damien narrowed in on him, pushing Dark to move towards Bim. Damien already wanted to wrap his arms around him. Celine wanted to pick him up.

He was trying to calm himself, especially since Google of all people was in the room. Dark walked into a show of carnage, which made his blue soul want to get Bim away from the room as quickly as possible. Another four bodies were in various states of dismemberment. Bim had his glasses back on, which was about one of the only things Dark was happy about.

Unfortunately the boy was kneeling close to a dead body as Google stood over him. Dark missed whatever Google was explaining about the skull, even kneeling down to point something.

“Sunshine?” Dark called out, folding his arms because he was afraid of what he was going to do if he could readily use them. “What are you doing?”

Bim startled, before looking back at him. “Googs is teaching me ‘bout the human body.”

“Insightful,” Dark glared at Google who seemed overly proud of himself.

“I like this one, can I keep it?” Bim asked Dark, pointing to a skull.

“There is only one skull I want on my mantle, and it is not this wretch of a human’s,” Dark denied.

“But I want it,” Bim pleaded.

“I can get you a replica, we’re not bringing back souvenirs,” Dark dismissed. “You can have a real one when you’re older.”

“That’s in never,” Bim pouted. Then he looked back at the body, this time at a small mound of intestines he began to reach out to poke or grab at it with his bare hands. “What’s this? Can I have that?”

“Bim,” Dark called out, worried and concerned all at the same time, stomping towards him. Dark’s blue soul seemed more than a bit worried, Bim didn’t seem to be having a normal reaction to the death around him. His red half supplied that when his parents were Dark and Wil, that such a thing might be physically impossible. “Don’t touch that.”

“That is part of the large intestine, specifically the right hepatic flexure, responsible for receiving blood supply from the superior mesenteric artery,” Google answered, looking at Bim. As if Bim was doing something odd.

Dark thought that something was not screaming at all the blood and offal all over the place.

“Cool,” Bim commented and then to Dark’s disgust, disobeyed Dark and starting to poke it with a small chunk of rock.

“Bim,” Dark reproved. “I said not to touch it, it was inside someone.”

“I like how it moves,” Bim commented, staring Dark dead in the eyes as he kept poking it, naturally missing a couple times.

“Fascinating,” Google hummed, looking Bim over.

“What?” Dark reached down and pulled Bim away from the body. “Bim, stop that, you are taking a shower after this.”

“I had always assumed that he only took after Wilford,” Google commented. “I have been observing his behavior for some time and until this point he has never tested that observation. But I was mistaken.”

Another parent might have been proud, Wil would have bragged and boasted about Bim. Dark, however felt a deep dread clawing at his souls. Dark had been doing everything to keep the dark influence that had once been in the Manor. The twisted force of nature that had corrupted anyone that lingered inside. It had ruined all of them. Broken their minds, bodies, and souls. Dark had been desperate to keep Bim from suffering the same fate.

All Dark could do was think of Bim’s smiling face being tainted by that. His perfect little miniature of Wilford . . . Dark’s insides curdled with jealous rage at himself.

During Dark’s little crisis, Bim had wandered off to another part of the room, and Google had started watching the little underworld prince again.

“He is decidedly not human, it is fascinating,” Google commented. “However was his neural network mapped out?”

Dark, partially to save face, and partially in fear, snidely commented, “Quite the human observation, Google. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were fond of the boy.”

Google flinched, as if he’d been commanded by Dark, standing up with inhuman fluidity. “I— . . . I would never. I have no emotions.”

“Hello boys!” Wilford yelled, loudly announcing his presence as he teleported into the room, saving both League members from the conversation. “Oh Bim, are you playing with some jelly over there?”

Dark snapped his head over to Bim, in his miscalculation of concentrating on Google, Bim was tentatively licking and nibbling on actual human flesh.

“ _Bim William Trimmer_ !” Dark screamed. “I said _NO_!”

Bim looked him dead in the eye and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

Wil was too busy laughing to help Dark.

An agitated bristle shot down Dark’s spine. He reached through the Void and pulled Bim closer. “Are you serious?”

Dark wound up sending Wil ahead with Bim, ordering Wil to get him to take a bath while he organized a team to clean up the warehouse. The Entity had made Wil swear to put all Bim’s clothing in a bag for him. Google stayed with Dark, asking tons of questions.

“How was Bim conceived?” Was the first question out of Google’s mouth, his cold demeanor fracturing as his curiosity took over.

“He’s a clone Google,” Dark reminded. “If you want Prof. Bouregard’s notes, you can ask her on the condition that they will stay strictly between the three of us.”

“The job was tasked to only one scientist?” Google asked hesitantly.

“No,” Dark answered, “I killed the rest of the staff. They were too eager to have Bim back and give him that moronic name they called him.”

“I comprehend,” Google answered, stepping over a body to follow Dark as they walked out into the main room. “What I am failing to gasp is where Warfstache falls into the equation, he has a great deal of emotional and mental influence over the boy as a parental figure, but is he just as inhuman?”

“I think you’re dwelling on the idea a bit too much,” Dark dismissed, looking down at the rest of the carton of his cigarettes. Things that would completely go to waste on him, but now that he had them he could feel the itch desperately coming back.

An itch that would never, ever be satisfied.

“There is information to be uncovered, Bim is the only known successful human clone, it is information to be categorized,” Google thought out loud.

Dark chuckled a bit at the android as he lit up another cigarette, “ _Classified information._ I don’t care if _you_ have it as long as you don’t share it.”

“Of course,” Google sounded more than a little insulted, but he was watching Dark a bit too intensely for the Entity’s liking, specifically staring at the cigarette between Dark’s lips. “Provided you answer my questions.”

“So long as they are discreet, and you listen when I tell you to drop the issue,” Dark warned, burning through the cigarette a bit too quickly in his agitation. He kicked the head of one of the humans Google had killed on his way into the main room. The Entity was still furious, still angry, and only sated by the fact he still had Harold to torture back in a locked up part of the Void.

Google frowned, clearly unhappy with the denial of unrestricted access to Dark’s personal information. He still acquiesced, “Affirmative.”

Dark gave him a sidelong look, before sighing, “Proceed.”

Google then, like a hungry vulture, began to immediately ask questions as fast as his voice processor allowed him to ask them. Big questions like how the cloning process worked to make Bim. _I told you to ask the Professor, I’m a businessman not a biomedical engineer._ How many attempts it took to get Bim. _Eight._ And even detailed questions about Bim’s diet and muscular structure.

This questions continued as they waited for Dark’s clean up crew where the last two cigarettes from Dark’s carton were hidden, and his itch to keep smoking them despite the mounting need for the nicotine hit which never came, was violently smothered and Dark put a stop to Google’s questions about Bim, sending him back to his lab to keep working towards his secondary objective and to work on installing better security in Wil’s studio.

Once clean-up had begun, Dark left. He ported himself back to the Manor to drop Bim’s blood soiled clothing into a Void straight to the most destructive volcano he could think of and tended back to Bim.

Wilford was telling Bim an overly exaggerated tale of an explorer in the jungles of India and Dark stood there watching Bim’s enraptured attention and the huge joyful smile on Wil’s face. A small smile spread across Dark’s face. He had his little family here and there were problems for him to solve, but he would leave them for after Bim was fast asleep.

His little prince tucked in bed, where Dark would do his best to fight off the monsters of the world until Bim was old enough to fight them off him.

**Author's Note:**

> Bim will later start getting cravings for a red meat a little more exotic than cow or pork. But that’s a story for another week. Also: Google is a curious bean and you can pry that from my dead robot-loving hands.


End file.
